Concepts to improve your cognitive toolkit?

"Electronics", of course. Not only is practically all of science, and most of life these days, dependant on electronics, actually doing electronic design is wondeful brain exercize, with the concepts applicable in all sorts of other contexts.

Designing, say, a simple photoreceiver involves you in electromagnetics, the speed of light, semiconductor theory, shot noise, Johnson noise, mechanical design, optics, materials properties, manufacturing, marketing... all at once.

And electronics doesn't need a mental sandbox. It teaches you to think in all directions, to putter all about the solution space, all the time... even when you thought you were 90% done.

John

All sort of true. Except that it all applies to chemistry too ...

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

But you're arguing against it.

That's not quite the spirit of "anything goes mental sandbox." Now if a *creationist* started wondering why 'he' created illusions with all those fossils, then that creationist would be temporarily entertaining repugnant/rejected thoughts. That's the technique I'm discussing. (It's provisional acceptance, not provisional acceptance-and-then- instant-counterarguments.)

Nope, it's very close to "suspended disbelief" added to "gedankenexperiment." Irrational belief is a powerful force, but irrational disbelief is its equal. Reasonable people should have the skill of provisional acceptance of unusual ideas. Provisionally accepting a repulsive idea is just a way of flexing that "unused muscle." For example, provisionally accept that religious faith is a good thing, and that questioning fossils is sinful. (If it makes you cringe, and you can't bring yourself to actually do it, THEN you're going in the right direction of entertaining thoughts that are taboo and completely outside normal experience.)

This all has the effect of damaging our own certainty, which erodes rigid thinking pushes us into the world of the scientist.

((((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( (o) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty Research Engineer beaty, chem washington edu UW Chem Dept, Bagley Hall RM74 billb, eskimocom Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700 ph 206-543-6195

Then you'll probably REALLY not like this website:

Cheers! Rich

I don't know... I never cared much for wet stuff. But in electronics, you not only have a lot more going on (analog, digital, control theory, electromagnetics, all that fun stuff) but you can probe and measure and visualize all sorts of stuff, from PPMs to picoseconds. In most other fields, measurement is much more limited. Like, inside a jet engine, it's hard to measure oil flows or blade temperatures, but I can touch a scope probe anywhere on a circuit board. What's the horsepower curve of an IC engine do as a function of inlet header length? That might take weeks and $50,000 to determine. I can look at a waveform and turn a trimpot and see stuff change in real time. I don't know of anything else that has the visibility of electronics. That visibility can train instincts fast.

John

Eh. I've already been training myself by listening to Rush Limbaugh for a few weeks (in progressively larger doses.) But that was years ago, so perhaps now it's worn off!

((((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( (o) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty Research Engineer beaty, chem washington edu UW Chem Dept, Bagley Hall RM74 billb, eskimocom Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700 ph 206-543-6195

Try to do the measurement. There's lots of talk-talk. I find the best way to understand something is to try and measure it. Then you've got something to talk and think about.

Thanks for the web site link, yet another place to 'waste' time.

George H.

))))))

5-1700

u/wbeaty/

Psychologist, London School of Economics; Author, Soul Dust

The "Multiverse"

The scientific concept of the "multiverse" has already entered popular imagination. But the full implications of the idea that every possible universe has been and will be actualised have yet to sink in. One of these, which could do more to change our view of things than anything is that we are all destined to be immortal.

This welcome news (if indeed it is welcome) follows on two quite different grounds. First, death normally occurs to human bodies in due time either as the result of some kind of macro-accident ? for example a car crash, or a homicide; or a micro-one ? a heart attack, a stroke; or, if those don't get us, a nano-one ? accidental errors in cell division, cancer, old age. Yet, in the multiverse, where every alternative is realised, the wonderful truth is that there has to be at least one particular universe in which by sheer luck each of us as individuals have escaped any and all of these blows.

Second, we live in a world where scientists are, in any case, actively searching for ways of combatting all such accidents: seat belts to protect us in the crash, aspirin to prevent stroke, red wine oxidants to counter heart attacks, antibiotics against disease. And in one or more of the possible universes to come these measures will surely have succeeded in making continuing life rather than death the natural thing.

Taking these possibilities ? nay certainties ? together, we can reasonably conclude that there will surely be at least one universe in which I ? and you ? will still find ourselves living in a thousand years, or a million years time.

Then, when we get there, should we, the ultimate survivors, the one in a trillion chancers, mourn our alter-egos who never made it? No, probably no more than we do now. We are already, as individuals, statistically so improbable as to be a seeming miracle. Having made it so far, shouldn't we look forward to more of the same?

--
Dirk

http://www.neopax.com/technomage/ - My new book - Magick and Technology

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My Ph.D. was on a gas phase reaction, and solid-state chemistry is also important.

Chemistry has a number of spectroscopic visualisation techniques - you've been involved in one of them, controlling magnets for nuclear magnetic resonance imaging machines. Electron spin resonance is another, and the whole range of optical spectroscopy, including weird stuff like Raman spectroscopy has been greatly extended since my time by the various laser light sources that have become available.

One of my friends from my chemical past did something interesting with a diesel engine

You don't know of anything that has the visibility of electronics because you don't know much about anything outside of electronics. "Physical methods" were revolutionising chemistry when I was an under- graduate, and they've also changed biology, psychology and climatology, to name a few more examples.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You might note that all those techniques are electronic.

You cast insults in preference to thinking. What a jerk.

OK, name a process or a science that has the visibility and measurability of an electronic circuit. Name a hard science that doesn't depend heavily on electronics to acquire, store, and analyze.

John

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They do depend on electronics for the signal detection and processing, but the chemists that use them don't tend to spend much time thinking about the electronics involved.

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It may be an insulting statement of fact, but try and think of way expressing the concept in a way that doesn't make you look like a Johnny One-Note.

DNA-sequencing. It tells you all you can know about a chunk of genetic material. Understanding that information in context is a little more difficult, but we are working on it.

That's more difficult, but it doesn't make electronics the only "wonderful brain exercise" around. It's a very useful tool - which is why I took it up when I was working on my Ph.D. project - but it's only one of a number of other very useful tools that working scientists have at their disposal.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Fact? I've worked on hundreds of processes, from moon rockets to

32,000 horsepower ships to tomographic atom probes to the world's biggest laser. This week's item is EUV light sources. Look it up... interesting stuff. It might take your mind off AGW.

You don't seem to have done very much, and not much of that was successful.

Excuse me, but aren't DNA sequencers electronic?

The "a little more difficult" bit was funny, I admit. But who does "we" refer to?

I never said "only." I said that doing electronics is a good thing for improving one's "cognitive tool kit." You love to make up stuff I never said, so you can try to hijack discussions and switch to insults. What an insecure, uncivil doofus.

It's a very useful tool - which is

Working scientists? That sure doesn't include you. Funny.

John

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One of my hockey team works for ASML and was gloating about their sales figures after last Monday's hockey practice. EUV light sources are not only interesting but commercially important.

Ir would seem that I've been more intensively involved in a smaller number of projects. You do seem to be a master of the superficial.

I'm sure that there are electronic compoents involved, as the - rather superficial - wikipedia article make clear

but if you knew a little bit more about what you were talking about, you'd be aware that the electronics forms only part of the system.

The human race - or a least that part of it involved in doing science.

As a concept to improve one's cognitive toolkit it may well be interesting, but since it is scarcely unique amongst the applied sciences. You got upset when I pointed out that chemistry works just as well.

Would you care to identify whatever it was that I'd made up that you never said?

Whereas you never resort to comments like "jerk" in you previous post and "insecure, uncivil doofus" in this one?

You are a little thin-skinned.

I don't find it funny at all. I'd much prefer to be working, as you are well aware, which makes your comment something that can only have come from an insecure, uncivil doofus.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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I sure hope so. But the difficulties are immense. Cymer has already shipped three EUV units to ASML. An EUV lithography setup occupies two, or maybe three, floors of a building. People are talking numbers like $50e6 per station.

I've been told that a majority of the ICs made in the world are exposed by a box I designed. Which includes exposing the ICs that go into the box I designed. My revenue is somewhat below 1PPM of the money stream I control. I suppose there are engineers who do even worse.

Not superficial, just scores of interesting projects, each very intense. But we finish them and move on.

That was my on-topic point. Doing electronics is great, probably the best, mental training for being able to understand and design dynamic and signal processing systems of all kinds. Electronics is at the center of science and civilization and is a great base to reach out from. From a personal standpoint, there are zillions of non-electronic businesses that need good electronics and don't have it; if you're good at electronics and are willing to learn a bit about their technology, you can make yourself very useful.

The best electronic training starts with the classics: basic circuit theory. signals-and-systems, control theory, all that analog stuff. Then one has to learn how to do all that in the digital domain. The more direct digital-first or - horrors - "computer science" path is mostly useless for dealing with the real world.

Reading AoE cover to cover is practically the map of a career path.

Hey, just my opinion.

John

Read 'Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking ' by Malcom Gladwell. One of the concepts he explains is the effect that exposure to incorrect ideas, even those that we consciously know to be incorrect, can affect our subconscious.

One example that he gives is the effect that racist comments can have on our perception of the targeted minority. Even if one knows that the comment is racist and unfounded, it gets registered into the subconscious. There are word/image association tests that reveal the resulting bias. The interesting thing is that, for racism targeted against black people, even they themselves are negatively affected (viewing their own race poorly). The interesting example is Gladwell (the author) himself took the test and demonstrated this bias. And he's part black (Jamaican).

The idea that one can develop an effective 'mental sandbox' might be more difficult than you think. You might consciously believe that you can sequester ideas for further analysis before incorporating them into your belief system. But your subconscious mind doesn't work that way.

One interesting side note: For certain types of knowledge capture, AI systems are much better at backtracking from current inputs to identify and modify the weighting of previously learned rules. And not just rules, but knowledge sources. Humans can get something stuck in their head that turns out later to be not true. But other knowledge derived from the same, possibly faulty, source is still taken to be valid. AI systems can downgrade the reliability score of a knowledge source and all of its rules if some of them turn out to be unreliable (not something that many political pundits, investment advisers, or fundamentalist preachers are happy about).

--
Paul Hovnanian  paul@hovnanian.com
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Have gnu, will travel.

But exposure to incorrect ideas can plant the seeds of useful ideas. The best exercize for skiing is skiing, and the best exercize for thinking is thinking.

Design is somewhat different from analysis.

John

Ever play sports? Organized, with a coach or trainer. The best exercise for something is doing it correctly. The worst is to do it wrong. Muscle memory, or your subconscious are very difficult to retrain once the wrong patterns are burned in.

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Porsche: If I went any faster, I'd have to eat airline food.

Things only become fun after you become good at it. ...Jim Thompson

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I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

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Agreed.

Maybe, though I doubt it.

All true, but there are lots of other technologies out there and many of them offer the same kind of short-term tests and rewards that you find in electronics.

There are lots of "real worlds" out there.

It is a text-book written for a course at Harvard intended to teach physicists electronics. It suits me because I got into electronics as a physical chemist who needed to be able to measure stuff, and in that sense it is a map of my career path. I doubt if it is the only career path.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen